Minority Report

Bush Devaluing Global Brands

Looks like Bush's foreign policy is backfiring for his backers:

The Bush administration's foreign policy may be costing U.S. corporations business overseas--according to a new survey of 8,000 international consumers released this week by the Seattle-based Global Market Insite (GMI) Inc.

Brands closely identified with the U.S., such as Marlboro cigarettes, America Online (AOL), McDonald's, American Airlines, and Exxon-Mobil are particularly at risk. GMI, an independent market research company, conducted the survey in eight countries December 10-12 with consumers over the internet.

One third of all consumers in Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, and the United Kingdom said that U.S. foreign policy, particularly the "war on terror" and the occupation of Iraq (news - web sites), constituted their strongest impression of the United States.

Twenty percent of respondents in Europe and Canada said they consciously avoided buying U.S. products as a protest against those policies. That finding was consistent with a similar poll carried out by GMI three weeks after Bush's November election victory.

If I were the owners of some of these brands, I'd be a little pissed since most of them made a majority of their contributions to the Republicans. Moreover, many were in the top 20 political contributers in their industry. Below is a breakdown of the companies identified as hurting or at-risk and what percentage of their political contributions went to Republicans (thanks to the Center for Responsive Politics).

Marlboro – 63%
American Airlines – 64%
McDonald’s – 80%
AOL –23%
United Airlines – 60%
American Express – 61%
Exxon Mobil – 88%
Chevron Texaco – 83%
Chrysler – 63%
General Motors – 64%
Mattel – 0%
Northwest Airlines – 57%
Budweiser – 56%
Starbucks – 0%
CNN – 23%
Coca-Cola – 66% / 75%
Burger King – 75%
Wal-Mart – 80%
Boeing –65%
Ford – 72%
MTV – 22%
Pepsi – 87%
Citigroup – 45%
Gerber’s – 100%
Jack Daniels – 100%
GE – 61%

So Much for the Party of Morals

In the wake of back-to-back ethics slaps at the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, House Republicans are preparing to make it more difficult to initiate ethics investigations and could remove the Republican chairman who presided over the admonishments of Mr. DeLay last fall.

I'm positive this is what Jesus would do.

Better Late Than Never

... I guess. Looks like the AARP has finally rediscovered its conscience:

AARP, the influential lobby for older Americans, signaled Wednesday for the first time how fervently it would fight President Bush's proposal for private Social Security accounts, saying it would begin a $5 million two-week advertising campaign timed to coincide with the start of the new Congress.

After selling out the interests of its members on the Medicare prescription drug bill...

If You Can't Beat 'Em...

Debate them??

Bush Takes Rare Step of Debating Bin Laden By DAVID E. SANGER Published: December 30, 2004

CRAWFORD, Tex., Dec. 29 - President Bush took the unusual step on Wednesday of responding to one of Osama bin Laden's taunting tape recordings, declaring that Mr. bin Laden's recent call for Iraqis to boycott the elections in January "make the stakes of this pretty clear to me."

"His vision of the world is where people don't participate in democracy," Mr. Bush said of Mr. bin Laden, Al Qaeda's leader, who has eluded capture for more than three years. "His vision of the world is one in which there is no freedom of expression, freedom of religion and/or freedom of conscience. And that vision stands in stark contrast to the vision of, by far, the vast majority of Iraqis."

Mr. Bush's comments were unusual because, after having declared soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that he wanted Mr. bin Laden "dead or alive," the president has usually avoided mentioning him.

His aides have said it would be a strategic error to respond to every one of Mr. bin Laden's tape-recorded threats, or to seem to elevate his status by putting him in a long-distance debate with the president.

And responding now, on the brink of Iraqi elections, somehow doesn't elevate Bin Laden's status? I'm sorry... are we now fighting the war on terror as a war of ideas? Is it now a war of words?
I'm sure Saddam wished he got this deal...

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

The US has promised $15 million in aid for countries hit by the tsunamis. UN officials are less than impressed:

U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland suggested that the United States and other Western nations were being "stingy" with relief funds, saying there would be more available if taxes were raised.

"It is beyond me why are we so stingy, really," the Norwegian-born U.N. official told reporters. "Christmastime should remind many Western countries at least, [of] how rich we have become."

"There are several donors who are less generous than before in a growing world economy," he said, adding that politicians in the United States and Europe "believe that they are really burdening the taxpayers too much, and the taxpayers want to give less. It's not true. They want to give more."

Atrios has a great post on context but I've got another one for you.

We can spend $151 billion to kill Muslims but only $15 million to save them.

Here's a bunch of sites where you can make a donation to undo this image of the United States.

Lessons of the Sepoy Rebellion

For a president that often boasts about his devout religious faith, his Administration seems surprisingly dismissive of other faiths. From today's New York Times:

"They now suspect everyone here," said Lt. Col. Ahmed Ibrahim Ali, the commander of the Iraqi Army battalion. "We feel like we live in a prison."

Separately, Captain Uthlaut said, "We are a little more careful with searching these guys. "The fine line is treating them as partners, while not treating them like prisoners."

For their part, Iraqi soldiers grumble about poor food, prisonlike conditions, insufficient salaries, outdated weapons, lack of access to medical care and lack of contact with their families. Their sleeping quarters are cots on a concrete floor, not much worse than those for some American soldiers here.

...The Iraqis, for their part, complain bitterly about the preserved, ready-to-eat rations that come in sealed bags, saying the meat inside is not slaughtered according to Islamic practices.

"We throw everything away but the biscuits," said Tahsin Ghanim, a 22-year-old Shiite Muslim soldier from Baghdad. "Can you imagine a soldier operating just on biscuits?"

Dhia Qathim, also from Baghdad, said some of the rations contained pork. "The Americans are Christian; they would not understand," he said.

American forces would be well-advised to avoid unneccesary cultural conflicts, especially those surrounding religion and basics like food. The British learned the hard way when they ignored the religious practices of their Hindu and Muslim troops, leading to the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857.

Historians like J.A.B. Palmer and John Kaye trace the origins of the soldiers' rebellion at Meerut, in which South Asian soldiers rose up against their colonial officers, to the Lee-Enfield Rifle.  It was developed at the Enfield arsenal by James P. Lee and fired a .303 caliber ammunition that had to manually loaded before firing. Loading involved biting the end of the cartridge, which was greased in pig fat and beef tallow. This presented a problem for native soldiers, as pig fat is a haraam, or forbidden, substance to Muslims, and beef fat is, likewise, deemed inauspicious for certain Hindus. Thus, the revolt occurred as a reaction to this particular intrusion into Hindu and Muslim culture, and then caught on as a national rebellion.

The cartridges were the spark that ignited the powder-keg of already inflamed religious insensitivity on the part of the British. Iraq is already a powder keg that hangs on a loose thread - this is the last thing we need to send it all over the brink. Of course, hoping that the Bush Administration would learn the lessons of history is already hoping for too much...

Talk About Media Bias

Bring down two skyscrapers and four airplanes with a total death toll of 3,000 in an American city and you get 24-7 coverage for almost a week.

Bring in a tsunami that goes into 9 countries, kills an estimated 22,000, leaving millions homeless and the specter of thousands more dead in the coming weeks with the onslaught of disease and other ravages of such a natural disaster and the story dominates the nightly news and then we go back to finding out about Britney Spears on Entertainment Tonight at 7pm.

There IS a bias, but it's not liberal. It's against people who aren't American.

Predictable...

Among desis (slang for South Asian in case you weren't aware), the most common and predictable behavior is to rain on someone's parade. Ever jealous and petty, most desis can't stand it when some other's fortunes are rising. Sure enough, my good fortune over the past month hasn't gone unpunished.

Meet "P-Rage":

I can't believe what absolute posers some people can be. Angry? About what - the movie premiere that you got to attend? Or the fact that you have to "work for the man" and trying to come across as if you're going to be some crazy subversive while there? Hell, man - I temped for JP Morgan and made sure to call my friend in South Africa for an hour at a time while there. That's giving it to the man. You should just give it a rest.

Apparently, if something good happens to me, I have to part with my rights to be upset about anything. What utter nonsense! By the same logic, I suppose that "P-Rage" has no right to be outraged over the monstrous parking and towing fines he paid on his wife's Japanese luxury car. Then again, I'm not the kind to begrudge a person's fortune or to take joy in their misfortune. As someone who has spent most of my career (and especially now) without any money, $245 will always be a lot to me.

What gets me though is P-Rage's mistaken notion that I am some kind of corporate subversive wannabe. I have never suggested that I am an anti-capitalist. Capitalism is admirable for its capability of wealth generation - it is far superior and efficient to any other system for generating resources. That said, it is often corrputed and twisted - concerns that I am anxious about as I join this system.

I'm not about "sticking it to the man" and even if I was, I certainly wouldn't do it by making long-distance phone calls on the company dime. Bragging about it is both childish and stupid, especially since I doubt P-Rage would be so bold given that he's got a wife to support and the things you can do as a single person are no longer things you can do as a married person. (Or maybe in his case, that's something he can do but I'm not going to tell my wife I got fired because I charged a few bucks to the company in a pathetic attempt to "stick it to the man.")

I've worked for a long time in the nonprofit sector. I worked most of that time without benefits, namely healthcare. I was uninsured for 5 years. I spent another 3 years working for an underresourced dotcom. I won't apologize for looking for more stable employment with better resourced organizations now that I have a wife to support and with future plans to support a family.

Morevoer, I realize that in a sick way, working for one of these company's greatly enhances my credibility with others who have access to these kinds of resources. The plan, as it always has been, is to leverage that credibility into redirecting those resources towards more socially responsible causes.

So P-Rage, you can get pissed off by my good fortune or you can try to understand that there is a bigger picture. One thing for sure, though, you're in no position to judge who's a poser or not.

Back into the Fray (Sort of)

Sorry for the lengthy absence - the craziness of finals and sudden job interviewing, combined with a surprise (and much-needed) vacation away from cellular phones, the internet, and television (thanks to my lovely wife).

Hopefully, I can reconnect although I can already tell you towards the end of the week, I'll duck out again to spend a few days with my wife's family for the New Year holiday. I'll try to post as much as I can between then.

Although I feel a little out-of-the-loop since I haven't read the New York Times in well over a week (might as well be a month), there's plenty to cover, especially since my absence hasn't shielded me from criticism and with stories like the tsunamis - well, it's gonna be a fun coupla days.

The Aviator

Sometimes my wife has a cool job. Last night, she scored tickets for the premiere of Martin Scorsese's The Aviator at New York's Ziegfield Theater.

Just like you'd expect, it was a glitzy affair. Leo Di Caprio, Cate Blanchett and Kate Bekinsale were there, in addition to Scorsese and Harvey Weinstein and other stars. Having never been to a movie premiere, I wasn't expecting all the speeches in the beginning - like the Oscars except much longer since they pretty much thank everyone over and over. Also didn't realize that the movie credits are treated like the introduction of the cast at the end of a play - you sit through and clap for everyone instead of just getting up and leaving. We bailed on the after-party - maybe next time...

The movie itself was fascinating - Howard Hughes is one of those figures you know about on the periphery but the details of his life are really interesting. Massive obsessive-compulsive disorder - the kind of thing that mad geniuses are made of. Movie ran a little long - it's 2 hours and 40 minutes - but it's a really interesting tale. Scorsese does a good job on character development but I got a sense that even he really couldn't place the chemistry between Hughes and Katherine Hepburn and Eva Gardner.

Either that or Leo Di Caprio really can't pull off the role because he's too boyish-looking and the actresses always look like they're robbing the cradle.

Still, it's worth your ten bucks.